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Partners HealthCare launches 10-year project to boost AI use

Boston-based Partners HealthCare on Wednesday said it plans to integrate deep learning technology from GE Healthcare across its network.

The 10-year collaboration will involve Massachusetts General Hospital and Brigham and Women's Hospital Center for Clinical Data Science.

The initiative will feature co-located, multidisciplinary teams with broad access to data, computational infrastructure and clinical expertise. The initial focus will be on the development of applications aimed at improving clinician productivity and patient outcomes in diagnostic imaging.

Eventually, the groups will create new business models for applying AI to healthcare, and they will develop products for additional medical specialties, such as molecular pathology, genomics and population health.

“This is an important moment for medicine,” David Torchiana, MD, CEO of Partners HealthCare, said in a statement. “Clinicians are inundated with data, and the patient experience suffers from inefficiencies in the healthcare industry.”

The collaboration will speed the development and adoption of deep learning technology, Torchiana said, and it will give clinicians the tools they need to store, analyze and leverage the flood of information to more effectively deliver care to patients.

The plan is to implement AI into every aspect of a patient’s hospital stay – from admittance through discharge.

“This is about creating digital tools that will have a profound impact on medicine,” GE Healthcare CEO John Flannery said in a statement. “By leveraging AI across every patient interaction, workflow challenge and administrative need, this collaboration will drive improvements in quality, cost and access.”

The initial focus will be on diagnostic imaging. Early work will address cases such as determining the prognostic impact of stroke, identifying fractures in the emergency room, tracking how tumors grow or shrink after the administration of novel therapies, and indicating the likelihood of cancer on ultrasound.

The applications are being developed based on patient impact, technical capability and market appetite.

The plan first targets the top clinician pain points and the most critically ill patients. The goal is to bring the most promising solutions to market faster, so they can start making an impact for hospitals, health systems and patients sooner.